As a young child, I was painfully shy. I’d watch other children play in the park, wishing I could join them, but I was too scared to approach. Eventually, my mother would come to the rescue. She’d ask the other kids if I could play, too. Today, I feel comfortable giving public lectures in large halls and having conversations in small groups, but I still tend to avoid situations in which I’m expected to spend time with a roomful of strangers.

There could be many reasons. For one thing, I might be carrying some childhood fear of rejection. But beyond that possibility, one likely element is that I tend to underestimate how much people like me after I meet them, as most of us do.

A new research paper reports that the common concern that new people may not like us, or that they may not enjoy our company, is largely unfounded.

Erica Boothby of Cornell University and her colleagues conducted a series of studies to find out what our conversation partners really think of us. In doing so, they discovered a new cognitive illusion (认知错觉) they call “the liking gap”: our failure to realize how much strangers appreciate our company after a bit of conversation.

The researchers observed the gap in a variety of situations: strangers getting acquainted in the research laboratory, first-year college students getting to know their dormitory mates over the course of many months, and community members meeting fellow participants in personal development workshops. In each circumstance, people consistently underestimated how much others liked them. For much of the academic year, as dormitory mates got to know each other and even started to develop enduring friendships, the liking gap persisted.

The data also revealed some of the potential reasons for the illusion: we are often more severe with ourselves than with others, and our inner critic prevents us from appreciating how positively other people evaluate us. Not knowing what our conversation partners really think of us, we use our own thoughts as a proxy (代理人). This is a mistake, because our thoughts tend to be more negative than reality.

There is always a reason why an old lady gives you a serious look – you are being too loud, dressed improperly or not crossing the street in the right place. Sometimes it can be lovely, but if you are already having a bad day, a mean old lady can drive you mad.

What to do about it:

I’ve come to realize that when people start conflicts, it is actually an expression of their inner state expressed in an outside way. You, your personality, your looks or your actions have nothing to do with it. It is not personal, so why take it personally?

2. That person, who cuts in front of everybody in line

This is something that gets me angry. Even if I am not in a hurry, I still feel bad for the other people in line who are being treated unjustly. Are you more patient than I am or do you feel annoying too?

What to do about it:

If we have negative thoughts then we are wasting our energy on negativity. Situations like this could be a great opportunity to learn to control our first negative responses and practice understanding. After all, the person may just have a quick question or maybe there is an emergency.

3. Friends that tell you “I told you so”

It is one thing to admit that you made a mistake and another to hear it from a friend. Friends should be there to support you and cheer you up when you are feeling down, not make themselves feel better at your expense, right?

What to do about it:

It helps to remember that when people say “I told you so”, they may mean, “Please listen to my advice to avoid future mistakes.” If this is not the help you need – voice it out, without getting defensive.

The term “social distancing” has been at the center of public conversation for a while. But it’s not “social” distance we are trying to promote. It’s physical separation. In fact, preserving social ties — even at a distance — is essential for both mental and physical health. The results of an analytic review published in 2017 indicate that a lack of social support is on a par with smoking cigarettes as a risk factor for health.

Given this fact, how might we best stay connected with others while maintaining physical distance? Would we be better off e-mailing a friend? Making a phone call? Having a video chat? In our study, Nick Epley and I tested whether the media through which people interact affects their sense of connection and how expectations of certain technologies impact the communication media they choose to use.

In our experiment, we asked participants to reconnect with someone that they hadn’t interacted with recently, either by e-mail or over the phone. Participants first made predictions about what it would be like to get in touch if they connected in these two ways. They generally believed that they’d feel more connected when interacting over the phone than by e-mail. But they also predicted that talking on the phone could be more uncomfortable than sending an e-mail. Although these participants believed that talking encouraged stronger bonds, most of them said they’d rather send an e-mail than call the person up. It seemed that fears about awkwardness pushed individuals towards text-based methods for communicating.

In the next part of the experiment, we had participants use one randomly determined mode of communication to actually reconnect and then tracked them after they had done so. We found that people did form meaningfully stronger bonds when interacting over the phone than by e-mail. Importantly, though, there was no difference in the amount of discomfort when they were reconnecting over the phone. The next time you think about how best to connect, consider calling or having a video chat. Feelings of social connection are preferably facilitated by voice rather than a keyboard.